Recently, a copying machine has been improved in its copying speed and in its additional means for feeding originals. With the functional improvement, many types of paper-aligning apparatus, so-called "sorters" have been developed. However, these sorters have only function of aligning papers into a plurality of bins but operation such as removal of the aligned papers, alignment of the paper edges, binding and punching thereof must be carried out manually. In order to come up with the considerable improvement of the copying machine, mechanical and automatical post-treatment of the copied papers is required.
In order to satisfy the requirement, an improved sorter has been proposed by the applicant, which may aligning edges of the copied papers, binding and then discharging the same. However, this type of sorter has shortcomings in that papers are held by an annular belt and recycled in a transporting path, generating static electricity which causes difficulty in the alignment of paper edges and in that the belt may restrict the number of papers to be aligned. Further, the alignment through the transporting path may arise another disadvantage in that the set number of papers depends on the path length so that increase of the set number may cause the apparatus large and complicated.